


The Dogs of SHIELD

by MadasaMoriarty



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: All The Superheroes Are Dogs, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dogs, Cause That Would Be Weird, Coulson Is Ex-CIA, Dogs, F/M, Gen, I Don't Even Know, Inspired by Fanfiction, Jane Is A Veterinarian, No Jane/Thor, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, People As Dogs, nyargles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-20 00:34:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8230109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadasaMoriarty/pseuds/MadasaMoriarty
Summary: S.H.I.E.L.D. The Shelter for Homeless, Ill-treated, Estranged, and Lost Dogs. Phil Coulson works with some strange people. He also works with some very strange dogs.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Phil Coulson is not a crazy cat lady](https://archiveofourown.org/works/720149) by [nyargles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyargles/pseuds/nyargles). 



Coulson had worked for the government most of his life. CIA mostly. Though he'd had a stint with Interpol. He'd enjoyed his work. Besting the bad guys. Making the world a little safer. Like a modern day super-hero. It's where he'd met his wife, and former director of the FBI Maria Hill. But he was climbing up in years and there were bound to be slip ups. New Mexico wasn't his fault. But the government needed a patsy. Phil was convenient. He took it well. He ransacked his office, stole everything he could get away with and walked out with the biggest cup of crappy office coffee he had ever poured himself. He drank it too. Out of spite. His wife was just glad he got out without seriously maiming someone. Phil loved his job.

He considered all the usual follow up careers. Police force. Private investigator. Police. There weren't really a lot of options. But he wasn't that young any more, and he had been looking forward to putting fieldwork behind him. So he did something else. Something he'd considered back in his informative years when his forehead didn't look so high and the world didn't look so cruel. He opened an animal shelter.

S.H.I.E.L.D. The Shelter for Homeless, Ill-treated, Estranged and Lost Dogs. No. He didn't come up with the name. Had it been up to him it would have just been 'Avenge Street Pound'. Unfortunately the first and only employee he ever hired thought it needed livening up. And an acronym.

Darcy Lewis was a Poli-Sci undergrad who agreed to work for three full meals, little over a hundred dollars a week and a cot in the small shelter's only back room; beside the drier. For warmth. She'd managed to convince his wife that it was 'cooler', and 'totally' more fitting of an ex-FBI director. She'd also managed to recruit a veterinarian that would work for half rates, so Coulson didn't mind so much. It was slightly cooler.

Dr. Jane Foster was technically a veterinarian, she had an operating license and everything, but she was far more interested in animal behavior and thought the pound would be a good way to observe them in a more natural state. And also it kept strangers from calling the police when she got a little too…invested…in their dogs.

Phil took a loan at a local bank to get the building up to code and managed to finagle extra funding from the government for 'years of service' after he started populating it with Manhattan's unwanted canines. It wasn't a desk job in Quantico. But it wasn't so bad. He might not be allowed to carry a gun anymore, but he did still manage to be more or less happy with his job. Plus he still had his taser. So that was something.

The Captain-

Phil looked up from his paperwork, transfer orders and bills mostly, when the bell over the door chimed and the dogs started their welcoming chorus of barks. Fury, the one eyed boxer his wife had adopted a few years ago from a marine buddy, had lifted his head and woofed, before resettling under the desk. The woman that came in was young-er then him. Probably early thirties, dressed in police blues and sporting a hair cut that was first popular in the 40's. It worked for her. The dog at her side was big and golden with sparkling blue eyes. A Labrador. Or something mixed with it.

"Can I help you." He really hoped he couldn't. Maybe she was here to adopt. There was no way someone was giving up a dog that gorgeous. This was the dog Coulson had dreamed of as a child. The sort of dog he would have wanted if his wife hadn't come equipped with a scowling boxer.

"Yes. I'm Officer Peggy Carter, with thee Riley County Police Department. One of my officers suggested you might be the place for this dog?"

She was British. Strange. Coulson exchanged paperwork, getting his special 'intake form' pen from the drawer.

"Of course. If you could answer some questions." Most pounds let the people who dropped off the dog fill out their own paperwork, but Coulson liked to know the stories his dogs came with, and he was used to taking notes while people talked. Officer Peggy Carter nodded, standing at full attention.

"What's the dog's name?"

"Captain."

His pen scribbled across paper. He could hear Darcy starting to dish up breakfast for the back row.

"Do you know how old he is?" He looked up when she hesitated.

"He's four."

"You don't sound sure."

"I am." Her voice wavered slightly. He decided to drop the subject. He'd just have Jane look at the dog's teeth later and make sure the age was mostly accurate.

"Reason for animal surrender?"

Another hesitation, more pronounced.

"It's a long story."

He arched a brow and gesture to a chair. Pushing the intercom button that would summon Darcy or Maria to the front desk.

It turned out that Captain had not always been the healthy beast of a dog that Phil could feel himself swooning over even as Officer Carter talked. He'd been a sickly stray, picked up out of Brooklyn by an under the radar operation, run by a man named Johann Schmidt, with another dog called Bucky that was currently MIA. According to the paperwork recovered at the scene, a warehouse in downtown, the two dogs had been subjected to a myriad of tests. Captain had received several shots of an unidentified protein and spent time in a specialized chryo-chamber, while his pal Bucky had suffered some sort of bacterial infection in his back left leg and been sent away to engineering; the only sector of the group that had managed to clear out after the police had received the call from one of the more… moral scientists. Doctor Abraham Erskine had died before police arrived on the scene. Multiple gunshot wounds to the chest.

Officer Carter had taken in a group of dogs rescued from the warehouse, which officers had affectionately nicknamed 'The Howling Commandos' after there… musical performance upon being released from their cages. She'd been more than willing to keep Captain even after his Commandos had been passed out to worthy friends, but she had received a deployment summons in the mail last week and had been unable to find anyone to care for the dog in her absence. Her friend from the air force had suggested Coulson's pound after she'd adopted Wilson, a lovable chocolate lab mix that he remembered kept trying to 'fly' over the cage gate. Phil had heaved a sigh of relief when that dog had been adopted. He was worse than Darcy on a sugar rush.

Darcy had made it to the front desk by the time Peggy had finished her story, her hands still covered in dog food dust and drool from breakfast.

"Hey Boss-man." She spared a smile for the police woman before fixing her attention on the dog. "Is this the new inmate?" She dropped to her knees and started rubbing his head. Captain's tail began to wag bashfully and he gave Darcy's fingers a few gentle licks. "Well aren't you just a stud! You better watch yourself dude, them lady dogs are gonna be all over you! Yes. And so is Jane, uh-hu, she likes 'um big and blonde yes she does! Yo' Son of Coul, does he have all his equipment? Cause I'm seeing some corn pups in his future if he does."

"You know that's against pound policy." Coulson gave her a glare. She'd picked up the 'son of Coul' thing from some Norwegian exchange students and he hadn't been able to convince her to let it go. She also had a habit of falling in love with the dogs and trying to talk him into breeding some of the cuter ones to 'make sure the awesome carried on another generation' or something like that. He made half a compromise by letting Jane adopt Thor, a Great Pyrenees mix, before he'd been neutered. The veterinarian had promised Darcy at least one litter of puppies before she resigned him to ineptitude. It didn't keep her from bringing it up.

"Yeah dude, Jane's already given me the 'animal prosperity' speech, complete with declining genetics, and rabies or whatever. And I am totes for keeping the K-9s healthy and all. Doesn't mean a girl can't dream." She switched out the dog's leash as she talked, giving Coulson and the policewoman a mocking salute before walking him back to the cages, crooning about how gorgeous he was the entire way. Phil found it exceptionally distracting. Peggy Carter watched them go, slightly teary.

"Oh! Uh, here. He's grown attached to it." Phil took the disk she offered, twirling it lightly between his fingers. "He usually never puts it down, but I didn't know if he'd be allowed…"

"Our main concern is the animals' health. Keeping him happy is a part of that. If you're sure you can part with it… then I'll give it to him. Suggest it be played with during exercise hours and make sure it goes with his family when he's adopted." Phil slipped the very patriotic Frisbee next to his keyboard, resolving to take it to the Captain himself once he and Ms. Carter had finished the paper work.

Phil became very distracted in the days that followed. He often found himself standing outside the Labrador's kennel, staring at him, sneaking treats, and letting him out during his lunch hour to lay under his desk with Fury. Maria noticed.

He had turned away two different interested families and was walking the third out the door before she said anything.

"You only had to ask you know."

It was a mark to how distracted he was that Phil jumped.

"I'm sorry?" His face was indifferent, but they'd been married over 6 years and Maria could see the guilty nerves in the line of his shoulders.

"Phil." She moved around the front desk, coming to stand in front of her husband, carding her fingers through the hair at his neck in a rare display of public affection. "I know Fury wasn't the dog you wanted."

"I like Fury."

"Nobody likes Fury. Not even Darcy."

"Darcy likes him."

"Darcy likes the fact that he wears an eye patch."

"True."

"I'm not against having another dog." This elicited a squirm of discomfort. "The Captain's a good animal. And he's obviously welled trained. You've already sabotaged three adoptions; I don't see why we shouldn't just keep him." She shrugged, she could feel Coulson wavering.

"We discussed this. Before we opened the shelter-"

"S.H.I.E.L.D.!" Darcy called as passed, taking a pair of dachshunds out for a potty break. Phil shot her a disgruntled look.

"We promised we wouldn't adopt any of the dogs that came in."

"Phil." His wife gave him a look he was sure she had used on junior agents a million times before. "You know as well as I do that we were going to break that promise the moment we made it. You want this dog. Take him." She curled her arms a little tighter around his neck as she pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek. "You deserve something good in your life."

The corner of Phil's mouth twitched as he leaned forward to capture Maria's lips with his own.

"I have something good in my life."

"Damn right you do." She smirked back at him, before detangling and heading back to the front desk. "I expect to see those adoption papers on my desk before dinner agent Coulson."

"Of course Director Hill."

Captain turned out to be a top grade Frisbee dog, he almost never missed. Phil took him out after dinner and ran him through his paces on any nights it didn't rain. S.H.I.E.L.D. had an extensive training gym, set with obstacles, automatic tennis ball launchers and a small agility course to keep the dogs occupied during their schedule hour of exercise. Part of the government funding Phil had compromised for. The Captain could run the whole thing in under ten minutes, but he preferred playing fetch with Phil.

Coulson made sure it was never easy. Cap could leap obstacles, dodge flying projectiles, run through tunnels and up teeter- totters and still come back with his red white and blue disk clamped between his jaws. It was damn impressive. And Phil was prouder of his dog then he was a lot of the field agents he'd trained for the CIA. Even Fury would lift his head to watch the Labrador at work.

And Phil didn't feel so bad about breaking down and adopting the dog. After all it was only one dog. His professional integrity was still intact. Little did he know, Cap was only the first.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by 'Phil Coulson is not a crazy cat lady' by nyargles. I hope she doesn't mind. Still not sure how it is going to end, but each Avenger is going to get a chapter. The only ones I have written are Cap's and Thor, suggestions for any of the others are greatly appreciated. (Also, if there are inaccuracies it is because I know nothing of the world)


End file.
